Cromwell's 'Christmas cancelled' broadsheet to auction at Sotheby's

"Christmas is cancelled". That was the crux of Oliver Cromwell's message, published in a 17th century broadsheet.

The 1651 publication, produced by the English parliament, advised people and churches that they should treat Christmas Day like any other, with markets to remain open.

Friends hoping for a Christmas card fromCromwell in 1652 were left disappointed

The £5,000-estimated document is one of several broadsheets being auctioned at Sotheby's London on July 10 that reveal life under the Puritanical regime.

The sale also includes a 1642 parliamentary broadsheet, setting out proposals to return England to "sad and pious solemnity" through the end of "spectacles of pleasure" such as sport and theatre. Shakespeare's Globe theatre would be demolished two years later. It would be 1660, which the restoration of the monarchy through Charles II, before theatres would play again.

Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, had had Charles I executed in 1649 during the English civil war.

The lot has a £3,500 high estimate.

"Living fragments, they cut right to the most defining moments of civil war and Commonwealth history," explained Gabriel Heaton, deputy director of Sotheby's.